18' Series Our new 18.57 for a Lap of OZ

[Tim]

Hi
Happy to announce we are new expanda owners after having purchased this beauty in QLD yet to see it in the flesh but will at Easter I was lucky enough that my parents were able to inspect it for us. We are going to use it to explore all of Australia next year and think it will best suit our needs for a permanent home for at least a year the only thing it doesn't have is an enclosed annex. It has already done a lap of Oz but is still like new so a credit to the previous owner for looking after our van so well. It is fully setup for free camping with solar and extra water tanks. I'm Excited.
Cheers Tim

 

[jacbaz]

Looks good and :welcome: to a very friendly site....

 

[chartrock]

Welcome @Tim, I guess you are not in Qld. We wont hold that against you but enjoy the van, Members here can find more ways than you thought possible to help you spend money on your van and tug.

 

[Crusty181]

Hi @Tim, welcome, and great choice of van for your planned trip. If your planning a trip around the block next year, we may very well cross paths. Where are you based? When are you leaving? Which direction? Kids? Tow vehicle? ... plus we will need a lot more photos to appease us, than the single insulting tease you have started with.

Noisey, aren't we?

To start the ball rolling, many here have struggled to find an annex manufacturer to supply an annex for a van with the fridge on the annex side due to some adherence to gas regs .

After our recent 5 week which we consciously used to work out our storage requirements, the first casualty to be jettisoned from the trip was our annex ... we simple can't afford to sacrifice that amount of storage. That may change as we move forward, but at this point it aint going

 

[Tim]

Welcome @Tim, I guess you are not in Qld. We wont hold that against you but enjoy the van, Members here can find more ways than you thought possible to help you spend money on your van and tug.

Thanks for the welcome and I am a QLDer through and through just forced to be somewhere else at the moment. Here's hoping I wont need to spend to much on the van as its previous owner has done a lot of the things I wanted anyway. Just giving it a good service and checking things over. Probably be better off spending a bit of coin on the tug as the van is a fraction heavier then I was looking for but it was to good a deal to pass up.

 

[mfexpanda]

Welcome @Tim your new van is a beauty

 

[Crusty181]

...... and I am a QLDer through and through

Oh well, chin up

 

[Moto Moto]

Welcome @Tim, i think that van will definatley work nicely for a big lap. What tow veihcle you using?

 

[dagree]

Welcome aboard @Tim
Will be looking forward to trip reports and pics when you do the lap..... We'll get there one day as well!!

 

[17triton]

Welcome Tim and all the best for the big lap!

 

[Tim]

2008 BT50 thanks for the welcomes to

 

[Tim]

We have a lot of stuff to do before the big trip still. We are waiting for our little girl who is 2.5 years old at the moment to get a little older so she can enjoy it more and remember more of the trip, we dont plan to be going until November 2016 and will spend the rest of this time downsizing our the surplus stuff in our lives and planning some of things we are going to do while away. We are also going to be looking for work while on our trip we plan to be away for at least 2 years. But have secured the tug and now the van which are two of the biggest hurdles we were facing and of course biggest costs. We had a three year plan and are so far just over 12 months into it so we are on track just have to continue building our trip fund. Anyone else out there planning or have done this I would love to hear from you in how you have planned it and things worked out.

 

[relgate]

Sounds great @Tim. Welcome to the forum

 

[cruza driver]

Welcome to the forum @Tim

 

[Boatboy50]

http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog/boatboy50/1/tpod.html

Hi, see the above link to our blog. It may help you in some way.

Darren

 

[Tim]

Well we got the van over Easter and how wrapped are we in it, several things need doing to our expanda, the airconditioner leaked in really heavy rain it needs a really good cut and polish and a lot of smaller jobs that can happen when they happen.
We towed the van from Gladstone QLD down to Albury NSW via the coast, talk about baptism by fire after never having towed anything bigger the a tinny gotta hand to those oldies I've never been more stressed in my life Newcastle was the worst place ever to try and navigate through with a van to see some of our family there and show off the van.
The Mazda performed superbly the van didnt have much in it and over the total trip returned what i thought was a very respectably returning a economy of 17.5 L/100 we have put a rapid chip in the Mazda gave it heaps more pull up the hills. Purred along at 100km/hr noticed no change in economy driving at 90 as opposed to 100 and seemed to pull up hills a lot better. To say we are stoked with both vehicles is an understatment.
Will post more later on some of the things we will do to it to make it more suitable to our needs.

 

[PeterV]

Congratulations Tim,
Would love to hear of any mods you may do for the trip and, once you are on your way, plenty of updates.

 

[Tim]

Mods to the caravan will be done as we find things we need, but i want to mount the spare under the rear seen it on a new model that way we can mount the bike rack better and get a lot of the weight from hanging off the rear bumper gone. The van doesnt have shock absorbers mounted not sure if it can but will look into that. Would like to put a grey water tank on the van as well also want to put a storm cover on the bed end. We still have what seems like a long time to wait before we go Nov 2016 is the rough plan to leave.